Critical Transfers: Teaching Approaches in Graduate Political Science
2
While the collective output of social scientific research tends to be evaluated
outside the academe primarily in terms of its utility in relation to concrete
problems, individual scholars do face tradeoffs between acquiring greater mastery
of a given method and seeking a deeper understanding of a given substantive
problem. Any principled choice in this regard, however is not terribly meaningful
since, in the end, individual scholarly projects usually need to offer claims about
both methodological rigor and substantive utility in order to be taken seriously in
the eyes of a particular research community (Rudra Sil 2004, 308).
Introduction
1
What kinds of Political Science programs excel in professional development of
graduate students, the process of producing a generation of scholars whose projects do
offer claim to both the “methodological rigor” and “substantive utility” that are taken
seriously in political science and further advance the discipline in some way?
2
There is
currently a great deal of debate over what makes a “good” graduate program and what
steps should be taken in improving graduate education. A number of recommendations
exist for improving the quality of graduate programs in political science and preparing
graduate students for the job market (APSA 2005; Cerney and Nerad 1999). These range
from preparing students for job talks and improving student work areas to in some cases
reinventing facilities and programs altogether. While these recommendations are often
useful and offer some insight into problems many programs face, they generally come
down to spending more money, an end that most department chairs and deans do not
want to hear, particularly in days of shrinking resources and thinly-stretched discretionary
budgets.
This paper considers a more fundamental way of improving professional
development in graduate programs without spending exorbitant amounts of money
Convention